Here are my three running and fitness goals for 2025

Posted on by Vanessa Junkin (She Runs by the Seashore)
Group of seven race medals on a wooden floor.
Here are some of the medals I earned in 2024. I’m not currently using a great system to display them, so this isn’t all of them.

I always like to start out the year with some goals. It is Feb. 19 (the same day I wrote this post last year), but I still wanted to share what I have planned for this year.

  1. Go to the gym at least 52 times. Something I have slacked on over the years is strength training, and I think this is catching up to me now that I am in my mid-30s. I set a goal to go to the gym at least 52 times during 2025. This is an average of once a week, but this also allows for visits to be made up if I have a busy week, am out of town or just don’t get to the gym one week. I’ve gone seven times so far in 2025 (helped along by some cold and unappealing-for-outside-running weather). Of course, I don’t have to stop at 52, either.
  2. Run a 10K under 1:00. Of course, I’d like to beat all of my recent times since 2019 (that was a faster year for me), but it’s hard to focus on multiple times. I figured I would pick a couple and if I end up running additional race distances faster, that’s an added bonus. In 2023, I ran the Mike Sterling 10K in 1:00:33, but I was several minutes slower for both of my 10Ks in 2024. With the right training and weather conditions, I think I can break an hour this year for the first time since 2019. I have much faster times in my past, but I’m trying to set reasonable goals.
  3. Run a marathon under 5:29:15. I have enjoyed the marathons I’ve run lately, but I haven’t been too satisfied with my times, and I think I’m capable of more (and I’ve run much faster in the past, so I know I was previously capable). I’m taking the spring off from marathoning, but for my fall marathon, I would like to run under 5:29:15 — my time at the Publix Atlanta Marathon on March 1, 2020, right before the world shut down for the pandemic. I haven’t been able to run a marathon faster than that since. I think focusing on a fall marathon will allow me to get in a strong training block and achieve this goal.

During 2025, I also plan to do lots of fun runs, explore new places and keep up my fifth year of monthly 1600-meter runs, striving for another sub-8:00 (I’m not too close to that currently, but I’ll keep working on it). I’m also participating in the Eastern Shore Running Club’s new 25 Group Run Challenge, and I’d like to run at least four races in the Maryland-D.C. RRCA Grand Prix again (my first race of the year and of the Grand Prix will be this Sunday).